Some of the heat must have shown on his face because she snapped out of her shock. “You have got to be joking. You can’t honestly believe I would ever make a move on you, much less one so incredibly blatant.”
Damn, but her indignation was so sexy and yeah, even cute with the incongruity of that Santa hat perched on her head. He couldn’t stop himself from grinning.
She stomped her foot. “Don’t you dare laugh at me.”
He tapped his head lightly. “Nice hat.”
Growling, she flung aside the hat and shrugged out of the hotel jacket. “Believe me, if I’d known you were in here, I wouldn’t have chosen this room to hide out.”
“Hide out?” he said absently, half following her words.
As she pulled her arms free of the jacket to review a rumpled black suit, the tug of her white business shirt against her br**sts sent an unwelcome surge of arousal through him. He’d been fighting a damned inconvenient arousal around this woman for more than two years, ever since she’d stepped behind a podium in front of an auditorium full of people and proceeded to shoot holes in his work. She thought his computerized diagnostics tool was too simplistic. She’d accused him of taking the human element out of medicine. His jaw flexed, any urge to smile fading.
If anyone was too impersonal, it was her. And, God, how he ached to rattle her composure, to see her tawny eyes go sleepy with all-consuming passion.
Crap.
He was five seconds away from an obvious erection. He reined himself in and faced the problem at hand—the woman—as a more likely reason for her arrival smoked through his brain. “Is this some sort of professional espionage?”
“What in the hell are you talking about?” She fidgeted with the loose waistband on her tweedy skirt.
Who would have thought tweed would turn him inside out? Yet he found himself fantasizing about pulling those practical clunky shoes off her feet. He would kiss his way up under her skirt, discover the silken inside of her calf…
He cleared his throat and brought his focus up to her heart-shaped face. “Playing dumb does not suit you.” He knew full well she had a genius IQ. “But if that’s the way you want this to roll, then okay. Were you hoping to obtain insider information on the latest upgrade to my computerized diagnostics tool?”
“Not likely.” She smoothed a hand over her swept-back hair. “I never would have pegged you as the conspiracy theorist sort since you’re a man of science. Sort of.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “So you’re not here for information, Mari.” If he’d wanted distance he should have called her Dr. Mandara, but too late to go back. “Then why are you sneaking into my suite?”
Sighing, she crossed her arms over her chest. “Fine. I’ll tell you, but you have to promise not to laugh.”
“Scout’s honor.” He crossed his heart.
“You were a Boy Scout? Figures.”
Before he’d been sent to a military reform school, but he didn’t like to talk about those days and the things he’d done. Things he could never atone for even if he opened free clinics on every continent, every year for the rest of his life. But he kept trying, by saving one life at a time, to make up for the past.
“You were going to tell me how you ended up in my suite.”
She glanced at the door, then sat gingerly on the arm of the leather sofa. “Royal watchers have been trailing me with their phones to take photos and videos for their five seconds of fame. A group of them followed me out the back exit after my last seminar.”
Protective instincts flamed to life inside him. “Doesn’t your father provide you with bodyguards?”
“I choose not to use them,” she said without explanation, her chin tipping regally in a way that shouted the subject wasn’t open for discussion. “My attempt to slip away wasn’t going well. The lady pushing this room-service cart was distracted by a phone call. I saw my chance to go incognito and I took it.”
The thought of her alone out there had him biting back the urge to chew out someone—namely her father. So what if she rejected guards? Her dad should have insisted.
Mari continued, “I know I should probably just grin for the camera and move on, but the images they capture aren’t…professional. I have serious work to do, a reputation to maintain.” She tipped her head back, her mouth pursed tight in frustration for a telling moment before she rambled on with a weary shake of her head. “I didn’t sign on for this.”
Her exhaustion pulled at him, made him want to rest his hands on her drooping shoulders and ease those tense muscles. Except she would likely clobber him with the silver chafing dish on the serving cart. He opted for the surefire way to take her mind off the stress.
Shoving away from the bar, he strode past the cart toward her again. “Poor little rich princess.”
Mari’s cat eyes narrowed. “You’re not very nice.”
“You’re the only one who seems to think so.” He stopped twelve inches shy of touching her.
Slowly, she stood, facing him. “Well, pardon me for not being a member of your fan club.”
“You genuinely didn’t know this was my room?” he asked again, even though he could see the truth in her eyes.
“No. I didn’t.” She shook her head, the heartbeat throbbing faster in her elegant neck. “The cart only had your room number. Not your name.”
“If you’d realized ahead of time that this was my room, my meal—” he scooped up the hotel jacket and Santa hat “—would you have surrendered yourself to the camera-toting brigade out there rather than ask me for help?”
Her lips quivered with the first hint of a smile. “I guess we’ll never know the answer to that, will we?” She tugged at the jacket. “Enjoy your supper.”
He didn’t let go. “There’s plenty of food here. You could join me, hide out for a while longer.”
“Did you just invite me to dinner?” The light of humor in her eyes animated her face until the air damn near crackled between them. “Or are you secretly trying to poison me?”
She nibbled her bottom lip and he could have sworn she swayed toward him. If he hooked a finger in the vee of her shirt and pulled, she would be in his arms.
Instead, he simply reached out and skimmed back the stray lock of sleek black hair curving just under her chin. “Mari, there are a lot of things I would like to do to you, but I can assure you that poisoning you is nowhere on that list.”